New Zealand judge Lowell Goddard will be navigating an ocean of trauma of another kind for the next few years, heading an ambitious Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in Britain.
Possibly one in 20 children in Britain have been abused, she says, and police there are preparing for a 71 per cent rise in their abuse caseload. She must be exhausted already.
If terrorist attacks are shocking, the harm done to children by people in positions of trust everywhere is equally so.
Currently we’re focussed on sexual abuse, but violence against the helpless drags on in spite of the unpopular anti-smacking law.
This past week a six-month-old Kapiti girl died from severe head injuries, and a 14-month-old Christchurch baby died of multiple blunt force fractures in what police called an “extremely violent assault.”
Maybe it’s time we ran our own investigation into how and why this happens, who to, and what, if anything, can be done to stop it.
2015-07-22